Purpose: When a student reports a problem with Dialogue, this is a quick reference for what's likely going on and what to tell them.

Common Reports and What's Usually Going On

"Dialogue kept talking to itself" or responded without me saying anything. This is almost always caused by the agent picking up its own audio output through the student's microphone, or picking up background noise. Point them to headphones and a quieter space; this resolves it in most cases.

"It didn't hear me right" or "it responded at the wrong time." Usually a turn-taking issue: the student spoke over the agent, or there was background noise while it was speaking. Same fix: headphones, quiet space, and waiting for the agent to finish before responding.

"It switched languages or voices out of nowhere." This is a known intermittent issue with the underlying voice AI platform, not something specific to the student's setup. The workaround is refreshing and restarting the session.

"It froze" or "wouldn't load." Have the student refresh the page first. If that doesn't work, check what browser they're using, Chrome is the most stable option; Safari in particular has more microphone handling issues.

"I got cut off before I finished" or "the session ended unexpectedly." Ending a step or the full session requires a confirmation screen ("End this step?" / "End & Submit?"), so an accidental full submission is unlikely. It's more likely the student's time limit ran out (if the activity has one), or a step ended and they didn't realize a "Next" step was available. Worth checking with the student what they actually saw on screen before assuming something broke.

What to Tell Students Proactively

If you know a Dialogue activity is new or likely to trip people up, it's worth pointing students to the Quick Start Guide and Pre-Session Checklist before they start, most of what shows up as "the AI is broken" is actually the environment (no headphones, noisy room, wrong browser).

When to Escalate

If a student's issue doesn't match any of the above, or the same issue is showing up across multiple students in your course, loop in your Noodle contact rather than troubleshooting further on your own. That's also the right move for anything involving grading or scoring discrepancies, not just technical glitches.